5:5a
Night and day: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Night and day here means “continually night and day.” It probably goes with the whole verse. That is, he never left this area of the hills and tombs and he continually cried out and hurt himself with stones.
Some English versions have made this meaning even more explicit:
Constantly, night and day (New American Standard Bible)
-or-
Unceasingly, night and day (Revised English Bible)
-or-
always, night and day (King James Version)
You may have an idiom in your language for this that is different from the Greek idiom. It may also be more natural in some languages to say “day and night” rather than “night and day.”
in the tombs and in the mountains: The tombs were located in an area of hills or mountains. The tombs and the mountains were not two different locations.
5:5b
he kept crying out and cutting himself with stones: The forms of the Greek verbs that the Berean Standard Bible translates he kept crying out and cutting indicate that the man did these actions often. Your translation should indicate this.
crying out: The man probably cried out in anguish because the unclean spirit was tormenting him.
Here are some other ways to translate this:
screaming (Good News Bible)
-or-
howling (New Revised Standard Version)
cutting himself with stones: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible and other English versions translate as cutting can also mean “bruise” (as in the Revised Standard Version) or “hit” (as in the New Living Translation, 1996 edition). There were many sharp stones in the mountains. If the man hit himself with them, he would both bruise and cut himself. However, if you must choose one of these meanings, it is probably best to choose the meaning “cut” or “gash.”
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All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
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